I've been on the periphery of a few pretty serious scrums at the old "Finale On Five" at the Rich's department store in downtown Atlanta, but I don't ever remember anyone getting trampled to death or hospitalized. And the linked incident wasn't over $259.99 flat panel TVs or something, but for the opportunity to buy cooking oil on sale. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that if you have people in your hinterlands trampling each other to buy cooking oil, you're still not quite part of the Prosperous Modern Nation club, but that's just me.
As far as I'm concerned, there's no sale on the planet for which it is worth waiting outside locked doors on a frozen morning in the midst of a dull bovine herd. Not to mention the inevitable checkout lines. God bless teh intarw3bz and Amazon.com.
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I thought about doing it for one of the latest game consoles. It is almost worth it to be able to turn around and sell it for a $1000+ profit on your way out of the store.
I tried it last year for the first time. I was trying to get a 22" widewcreen LCD monitor at what was then an incredible price.
One year later I can (and did) buy a better 22" widescreen for less than last year's Black Friday price. In consumer electronics last year's sale = this year's retail.
The irony is that those poor, heathen commies probably don't realize that there is undoubtedly some sort of toxic or carcinogenic additive to the cooking oil.
It's all part of a nefarious plot to lull the world into a false sense of complacency while subtly poisoning all those gwai lo capitalists.
My wife, my mom and my sister do it every year the day after Thanksgiving. The rest of the family is in grandpa's basement butchering deer that day, and they look at it as a little time off from that. I've worked those sales at Best Buy, though I've never actually done the wait-to-buy-stuff thing myself, and I just have no desire to be there at that time ever again. I don't care how cheap it is.
My wife points out that I get up at 2:00 in the morning to go deer hunting three counties over, and am huddled in a tree by 5:00 a.m. waiting for the sun to come up and trying to think warm thoughts.
If she can't see the difference between listening to turkeys come down from roosts before dawn and huddling on a filthy sidewalk hoping all the cheap TV's aren't gone already, I figure this is one of those things you just accept and let go. :)
Well, less said it: Anything you can't get cash-only at the gun show parking lot, you can probably do without.
It goes to show how full-circle things can come that we, who spend a cold night in the hope of going up-to-the-elbows in gutpile, just don't have it in us to head 'em up and move 'em out in an exurban asphalt concentration camp.
Can't imagine waiting in line at that time in the morning for a sale...unless it was a gun shop with everything marked down 50%.
100% S&W pre-model 10's and 90% Triple Locks now 75% off on Black Friday at Impossible Guns!
You'd be there. Admit it. :)
Wasn't there an insane rummage sale scene in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World? That's what I always picture when I hear of these shopping frenzies. All I know is that for all the pretense and wallet-slimming antics of shopping at upscale department stores, there is the upshot of the dearth of squalling, snot-slinging tubercular brats and the muffin-topped loins from whence they sprang, and that, to me, is worth shelling out the extra dosh.
"snot-slinging tubercular brats and the muffin-topped loins from whence they sprang"
Stand back, please. English in use! Big-girl words!
But, with "whence," you don't have to say "from."
Thanks comatus, but I was just festering to fit one more word in that sentence, and "from" seemed a toothsome choice. I wish you had a blog of your own, a pot to pith in, as it were. I'd blogroll you.
Hush your mouth, Phlegmmy!
My greatest fear is Comatus starting his own blog, as it would cut down on the prolificity of one of teh w3bz's best blog commenters!
Oh, and he's right: Take all after "squalling" and file under "wish I'd wrote that". :D
Considering the preponderance of stupidity that impedes us daily I suspect you'll find an excellent opportunity to steal that line, or inspiration to craft even more eloquent verbiage
comatus - Tam's right - don't blog - I already look forward to your comments, even if you spank me. Oh, and I wasn't paying attention in grades 1-12, so I ain't been learned proper. [Oddly enough, I had a post whining a few days ago about someone correcting my grammar, but I much preferred you to correct me than the other person (whose teeth I'd like to introduce to my shoe).]
Tam - you know, that came out rather well, I think, and I'm glad you liked it. I'm prolly gonna quote myself.
Um, actually, that was me complimenting you. I 'speck most folks think "whence" is the plural of "when."
I did spank an anonymouse at Breda's, though. It credited equality to Smith and Wesson, and got Mr. Smith's name wrong. That's not ungrammatical; that's immoral.
I was complimented, but I reserve the right to pout on occasion.
But that Smith error? Yeah, that deserved a brow-beating.
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